Rick Miller sent an email out to me Jim Papa and Dan Montuori, reminding us that this past week was the 30th anniversary of a camping trip we took the summer of 1990. He’s trying to get the New York guys together for a reboot of it, which I think is fantastic, and makes me want to be back there, in more than just memory.
Here’s the funny thing: I have only a couple fragments of memory from that trip. One of the things in the email that the other three guys all referenced I have no recollection of. Even typing this makes me uncomfortable, because I know those guys will read it.
The most important thing I remember from the trip is that it was cut short. We were still hiking up the mountain when Rick stumbled and cut his knee cap open on a rock. We could see his bone through the skin. He tied a bandanna around his knee for a bandage, I think, although even as I say that, I realize that I had just come off of Outward Bound and had a wilderness first aid certification. I was probably nerdy enough to be carrying a fanny pack of wilderness medicine crap with me. I actually can’t wait to hear what they say about that, because my memory is suspect on the issue. Anyway we headed home.
The other fragmentary set of memories I have are not flattering to me. Again, I need to express my nervous feelings as I put this down. I think I acted like a dick that trip. I had literally just gotten off of a month-long intense super crunchy granola back-to-the -earth spiritual hiking course. And I was a literal sophomore in college (I had just finished technically) and as you know all 20-year-olds instantaneously have moral certainty about whatever they had just learned a little of. The rest of the guys were looking forward to a fun reunion of high school buddies, and I was very judgey that they “weren’t camping right“. I know we hiked up with beer, and I was so not happy with them. Also, because “I was the expert“ I piled a bunch of expectations and responsibilities on myself, and that somehow I was the leader, because we were in the woods. Looking back at it it’s so easy to see what bullshit that was. We were literally on a mountain that Rick had chosen because it was near a part of the Adirondacks that he grew up hiking, yet somehow I imagined myself in charge. I was never the leader of this group in high school, if we had a leader. This story illustrates so much about the weird mix of overconfidence and fragility I was at that age. Honestly examining that little section of story I see so much of the baggage that I would wrestle with when I started teaching at Chinquapin four years later.
The tragic part isn’t the memory of the twenty year old person I was; it’s how the memories crowd out the marvelous twenty year old guys I was with. They were much of the bedrock of my high school experience and development. It might be that I pulled away subconsciously. It’s possible that weekend may have been the beginning of the natural change in our relationship that was going to happen with time. That doesn’t make it any less poignant.
On the off chance that any of those guys read this, and feel like they owe me anything for the 30-year-old feelings of a twenty-year old man, I want to preemptively say “I’m sorry”. My love for you, and the wonderful guys you were, and are, is timeless. Honestly the fact that you are still friends back home in New York is a thing that brings me peace and joy in the moments when I sit quietly.